Heard back from the sound student, unfortunately he’s sick and won’t be able to help. Oh well. If you want something done do it yourself. Am I right or whaaaatttt?

Going to ask one of my coworkers tomorrow if I can record him on his smoke break hah, hopefully it won’t be noisy and I’ll get some good Foley sounds to finish off my original sound design. Looking forward to it really, I love that little Zoom recorder. The plan is to record the Foley sounds tomorrow, and compile everything on Wednesday and Bibbity Boppity Boo all done. Just like that. Magic.

Continuing on from last time, I devoted a day to sort through all the dialogue material, pick the ideal recordings and time them up in Audition. I also managed to get a decent atmosphere track by taking my Zoom recorder to one of the Universities Sports fields, located close to the road, so I could pick up some faint sounds (cars driving past/construction building happening nearby/faint conversations) of the word happening around me. As well as some windy gusts…but, our character’s conversation takes place in winter, and when is it ever not windy now eh?!

I’ve complied them all together and I’m now waiting on one of the sound students who got back to me to let me know what he’d be happy to help me with! Hopefully I hear back soon…Hoping to be finished completely with the original sound design by next week.

Went in to the studios today to record the dialogue with one of the drama students, Adam, and we attempted doing both characters, fingers crossed! The recording went really really well, and after listening and sorting through the finished recordings I think I’m almost ready to put everything together….if it would just stop raining so I can record some Foley noises outside! Directing the mood and tone of the dialogue was a bit of excellent fun, Adam was very easy to work with! Maybe sometime in the far future I could get into directing…. who knows? The sky’s the limit!

We had to pitch our ideas to a small crowd of students today. Drama and Music students to help us with whatever we need, be it Foley noises, Dialogue, or the entire thing. Public speaking is always nerve wracking for some unapparent reason. I’m completely comfortable chatting to just about anyone about anything, but for some reason I seem to lose all the words to say when it comes to public speaking. It seems to creep up on me.

I had a definite idea of what I was looking for my original sound design so that made it a bit easier hah! It never goes as well as I hope but I must’ve done something right because I had quite a few people come up afterwards saying they’f be happy to collaborate on my project with me! Four drama students said they’d be happy to try out the American accent, and four music students said they’d be happy to help me with the Foley noises.

Three drama students have already gotten back to me so that’s a massive thumbs up, no music students though, so I think I’ll go ahead and do that side of things myself….who doesn’t enjoy making a bit of noise anyways?

I’ve sat down this evening to attempt to put inspiration into words. I don’t know why a blank page can sometimes be so daunting.

But happily enough the words seem to flow this evening. I wonder if its because I’ve been ruminating on the scene for a few days now. I seem to have written a short script, and I’m quite happy with it really! Now to find out if the drama students can do a believable American accent..I’ve attached the script below, if you feel like reading some nonsense today :).

I’ve been watching a lot of Fargo recently, and I’ve realised that dialogue based scenes (When executed excellently) speak to me intensely. Whether it be someone pouring out everything they’re feeling, or holding back the words they want to say. The emotion that can be portrayed is so strong. Always heavily aided by the sound score and the actors performance of course.

So as I lay in my bed, unable to sleep as I stress over not having a clue what I want to do for this original sound design….a scene unfolds in my mind. The bare bones of the scene is two friend having a conversation, but the conversation is inherently one sided. Ever talked to one of those people that just wanna talk AT you, instead of converse with you? This is that.

I imagine they’re two high school boys, 17-18, sneaking out to smoke a cigarette behind the garbage bins in the school parking lot. Our protagonist, Eli, has started the conversation with something he thinks the both “relate” to, when he really just wants to talk about his problems, or what he sees as “problems”.

This idea, we’ll call it a sudden epiphany, is the scene I’m going to go with for the final project. I’m getting a strong coming of age vibe from this idea….so I’m going with it. Let the inspiration begin.

In class we’ve been tasked with creating a short, 60 second only, original sound design of which it’s soundscape includes:

• an Atmospheric Track
• Music/Score Track
• Dialogue Track
• Foley sound effects track – Balanced to create a one over-all sound clip.

Since then I’ve been toying with a few different ideas, my first thought was to do a kitchen murder scene.

I’ve been listening to a lot of BBC Radio 4 Drama Murder mysteries and the murder soundscapes always leave you with a strong sense of foreboding and panic. I was thinking I could attempt to create that, with the clip starting with the end of a disagreement between a man and women in a kitchen which turns sour. The music score would build steadily – coming to a terrifying peak at the end. The dialogue would be at the beginning where she would say something like “what are you doing….” etc. – The Foley noises would be the sounds of a struggle, banging on counters, grunting, hitting or stabbing?, and finally a body slamming onto the floor. But I’m unsure if I’m going to lean towards this idea….

Second idea I had was sort of the opposite path….trying for a old grainy “golden days of Hollywood” feel. I love that “old” sound and how it instantly envelopes you with nostalgia.

Unsure of what the jist of it would be, maybe a romantic scene between two characters. With orchestral music as the score, building to a high crescendo when they kiss etc. Unsure of how I’d get the drama students to do a Mid-Atlantic accent though hah!

These two ideas are the ones I’m juggling between at the moment…I’m unsure if either of them “spark joy” or inspiration per se. I’m going to think on it a bit more.